A seed meter is a mechanism installed on agricultural planting implement to accurately and precisely distribute seed into the ground. The seed meter may be designed to deposit a singular seed at predetermined intervals along a seed trench. In such instances, the seed meter is designed to limit, and preferably eliminate, depositing more than one seed at a given interval (i.e., “multiples”) and failing to deposit a seed (i.e., “skips”) to promote a uniform emergence of plants.
Several types of seed meters systems exist, including but not limited to, brush-type, mechanical finger, and pneumatic. Pneumatic seed meters utilize positive air pressure or negative air pressure (i.e., a vacuum) generated by an air pump. The change in air pressure may be transmitted to the components of the pneumatic seed meter system through hoses. The pneumatic hoses may be mounted to the components via pneumatic couplers. The pneumatic couplers may be installed on a toolbar or other surfaces of the agricultural planting implement.
The installation of a pneumatic coupler is typically performed by welding hollow tubes, called bungs, onto a planter tube wall of the toolbar. The wall may be made of sheet metal. The process is cumbersome and may alter the material properties of the welded area of the bung and/or wall, possibly compromising the integrity of the same. Likewise, if a bung needs to be replaced, the welded bung must be chiseled, grinded or torched, processes that are also inefficient and may compromise and/or permanently damage the wall and/or toolbar. Moreover, other modes of installation of a pneumatic coupler often require the user have physical access to the inside surface of the wall. Given the space constrains of toolbars and agricultural machine implements generally, gaining access and clearance to effectively work on the inside surface of the wall may be unachievable.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved method and pneumatic coupler that permits the coupler to be installed or changed without user access to the interior of the toolbar. Further, a need exists to install or change the pneumatic coupler by means that do not significantly affect the integrity of the bung or planter tube wall.
The toolbar and/or planter tube wall may be of different thicknesses depending on the size, structure and application of the agricultural planting implement. Pneumatic couplers utilizing a two-piece construction, whereby male and female portions are mated through an aperture on opposite sides of the planter tube wall, do not accommodate toolbars and planter tube walls of significantly different thicknesses. As a result, an individual seeking to install or change a pneumatic coupler may need to maintain an inventory of different sized couplers with associated inconvenience and expense.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved pneumatic coupler that accommodates toolbars and planter tube walls of different thicknesses. There is also a need in the art for an improved method for installing and changing a pneumatic coupler on toolbars and planter tube walls of different thicknesses.